


Fragility

by OrionRedde, Shyrstyne



Series: Cometverse [27]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Myde is chaotic tired, namine needs more friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 16:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18706315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionRedde/pseuds/OrionRedde, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shyrstyne/pseuds/Shyrstyne
Summary: Namine stays in her tower hidden away from the world. It’s okay, she tells herself, because this time no one is keeping her there.





	Fragility

**Author's Note:**

> My sweet baby bean namine. Who hasn’t quite learned how to ask for her seat at the table yet so to speak. 
> 
> This takes place midway during The Call; after Myde has appeared in Ienzo’s lab bath, but before they’ve made any significant progress.

Naminé stays in the castle for the most part.

It’s not really by choice, though she’s not held against her will, she just.. doesn’t really have anywhere to go.

Her and the Riku Replica have carved out a space for themselves in one the taller towers that’s livable enough. They lead comfortable, if somewhat stifled lives there, as she tries to learn how to be alive and he tries to find a name that isn’t Riku. They’re both still ‘under observation’, making sure their bodies are integrating properly and nothing strange is going awry, and it means near constant checks and tests.

Most of them are done by Ienzo. Of the current castle scientists occupancy, he’s the only one Naminé can stand be in a room with for any true length of time. Having a heart has been good for him, she thinks. He smiles so much more now, and she knows he means every soft grin.

Even respects her skittishness and leaves anything he can under Ienzo’s careful eye.

Ansem tries exactly once to approach her, ostensibly to apologize. She locks herself in her room while Not-Riku stands outside it and demands he leave, refusing to so much as blink until he does.

She feels like a coward as her friend holds her later, rubbing her arms as she tries to quell the shaking in her limbs. Ansem is bad enough. She can only imagine what it would be like if Larxen-

It doesn’t matter. Larxene would never.

She doesn’t know if Ansem tries again, as after that the Replica Riku makes himself a wall between her and the others. Sometimes it’s annoying, but with the people here being who they were.. well she’s not going to tell him to stop. Not yet.

She knows they’ve made mistakes, that all of them have regrets and amends they’re trying to make.

It’s just that some of them she still hasn’t found forgiveness for.

But she doesn’t leave the castle, partly because she just has nowhere to go, and partly because she doesn’t want to run into any of the others on her way out. So she stays in her room and draws and tries to push the similarities out of her mind.

At least the tower has a better view.

It’s a few weeks in when she feels something on the edges of her senses, neither a sound nor a movement and she can’t help her curiosity. She’s alone in the room, her roommate out for his early morning run, so she doesn’t feel self conscious as she presses her hand to what appears to be an entirely normal section of floor in the shadows of a nearby table.

Something dark reaches up and wraps around her fingers.

It’s not tight, so when she gasps and pulls back in surprise they release her easily. Something echoes across her mind.

“Oh shit I’m sorry where am I hi bubbles.” The words are almost jumbled and she leans forward again as the dark pool grows a little larger.

An eye opens right in the center.

“Who are you?” She asks, feeling strangely calm. This being doesn’t mean her any harm, though she’s not sure how she knows that.

“Now that’s a good question. Who was I? Who am I going to be? Who are you?”

“My name is Naminé.” She reaches out her hand again tentatively, just touching the faded edges of the black abyss that pools there. A tendril snakes it’s way around her wrist.

“Names? Namine? Oh, names.” The being laughs. “I forgot about those. How did I forget about those?”

“Do you have one?” She asks, almost tentatively.

“Do I? I did. Deee… Demyx. It’s not right anymore though. I don’t know.”

“Demyx? From organization XIII?” There was no mistaking that kind of name, even if she’d never met him herself.

“Eughh.” Is the emphatic groan in response. “Unfortunately. Memory all over the place but yeah I guess I’ll remember _that_ just fine.”

She can’t help a small laugh. The tendril around her wrist releases to wave, she thinks it might be pleased.

“So why are you in my floor?” She asks. The tendrils stop, and the two more eyes open in them.

“Hanging around bugging Ienzo mostly. I’m in the floor? Oh I totally am. Rude of me huh? Mind if I come up?” She shakes her head and steps back as he rises from the floor, darkness clinging to him, stretching languidly.

“Sorry, kinda new at this still. Haven’t quite figured out the whole time and space thing. Which is funny cause I’m _sure_ I had a pretty good handle on it before. Where’s your Shield?”

She tilts her head, his eyes (so many of them) track something in the air she can’t see.

“My Shield?”

“Your shield, the one that refracts and echoes. I thought he’d be here.” He scratches his cheek. Knowledge dawns on her.

“He went for a run. He doesn’t like being cooped up here much.”

The eyes swivel to focus on her. She’s not as intimidated as she thinks most people would be.

“You don’t either.”

She shrugs.

“The Abyss calls you new-old. Wanna go somewhere?”

“Where?” She doesn’t ask about the rest of it.

The being that was Demyx just laughs.

“Anywhere!”

He sinks back into the floor, leaving a pool of inky darkness in his wake. She tests it with a toe, sinking part of a bare foot into it before retreating.

She looks around the room. Empty but for a few bare necessities and a couple small trinkets her friends (all of them, she has so many now and yet she doesn’t feel like she’s done anything to earn them) have brought her.

Takes a deep breath.

And slips in.

  
  


The replica Riku likes Radiant Garden, all things told. For all it holds bad memories for the original Riku, he finds the charm of its people and the growing swathes of flowers peaceful. He just doesn’t like the castle, but that has more to do with how it makes Naminé sad and feeling trapped again than it does his own feelings.

He tries to pull her out sometimes, see other parts of the garden, but she’s reticent. Given who and why, he can’t blame her, but he wishes he could give her a place that makes her feel truly at home. He wishes she’d let herself, or even him, ask one of the others if they could stay with them. His pride would sting, but for Naminé he would ask Sora himself to let them stay.

But she won’t, so he doesn’t.

He’s just considering heading back to the castle when a pool of darkness rises from a thick patch of begonias and he steps back prepared for a fight.

“There! Mirror shield, let’s go!” It crows, forming into the vague form of a person, and a smaller figure emerges from under a scaly arm.

“It’s me.” Naminé calls. “Do you want to go exploring with us?”

He eyes the dark abyss pooling around them suspiciously, trying not to be swayed by just how excited Naminé looks.

“Who-“ he starts, but is interrupted.

“I’m What Was Demyx! I’m the Abyss. Or the Abyss is me? We’re gonna go to a beach.”

“It’s okay, we can trust him. Please come?” She looks at him with such beseeching eyes and feels his willpower melt like cotton candy in water.

“Okay.” He says, and before he has a chance to do anything The Thing That Was Demyx woops excitedly and hefts him under one arm. He manages a single protest before suddenly the Garden has vanished- and along with it his stomach and half his other organs it feels like.

He’s dropped into soft sand, gagging wretchedly. He feels Naminé place a comforting hand on his back as the other pulls back his hair.

“Are you okay?” Naminé asks worriedly.

“I’m- hurk- fine.” He gasps, thoroughly unconvincingly.

“Sorry.” Not-Demyx winces. “I guess Abyss Travel isn’t for everyone. No quick buck as a cheap taxi service for me I suppose.”

Thankfully the vertigo and nausea passes quickly, and he gets to look at the world they’ve been brought to.

The sand is soft, a deep blue-black, the water glows brightly bioluminescent blue and the sky flickers with green lights in the dark.

It’s beautiful.

They spend a while exploring, just seeing what there is to see in this world. The avatar of the Abyss flits between shadows erratically, chattering non sequiturs at whichever of them will listen. Naminé kneels in the soft sand. It’s almost moss-like she thinks though she’s never touched real moss, and digs her palms into it, just to feel the textures.

“Oh,” She says as she comes in contact with something solid. Not-Riku looks over curiously, kneeling next to her as she slowly excavates.

“It’s a seashell.” He says. “I think?” It’s not something he knows very well, and this one is probably odder than most, black with a twisting shape and glowing speckles across the sides.

“Oh the Glass will love that.” The Abyss comments idly, not truly paying attention. “Have I met the Glass again yet? No I can’t see their name, I guess not.”

The replica just looks lost, but Naminé nods.

“I’ll keep it for when we meet them later then.” She promises, then looks up at the silver haired boy next to her. “Want to help me find more?”

He never could say no to her.

He ends up having fun, even if he finds himself picking grit out of everything for days afterwards. Considering Naminé was far deeper into it than he was he’s not sure how she manages to get out without hardly getting dirty at all. He swears it must be some kind of magic.

Naminé ends up amassing a small but substantial pile of shells before sitting back proudly, looking over them one by one. She picks up the dark, twisty one she’d first found and then stands, offering a hand to her friend.

“Thank you for coming with. I’m getting a bit tired though.” She says.

The man of the Abyss looks up from where he’s laying back on the sands, watching the green lights dance across the sky.

“Ready to go, Bubbles?”

“Her _name_ is _Naminé_.” The younger boy scowls, offended on her behalf, but Naminé puts a hand on his arm and a finger to her lips. Her eyes are on the man, his many eyes wandering the spaces around her.

“Could you explain what you mean, when you call me bubbles?” She asks.

“Sure, Bubbles and wind chimes and bits of glittering starlight, new-old, old-young, the daughter of wishes and master of memories.” He grins. “Or at least that’s what the Abyss tells me.”

“Thank you for answering. Yes, I’d like to go back now, please.” She says politely. The Not-Demyx doesn’t stand so much as change shape from laying to standing.

“Not home yet, but back we go. Just a little longer.”

The three of them sink into the darkness.

The Riku Replica stumbles as they emerge into their tower room, retching once more. Naminé pats his back consolingly, and this time so does a tendril of the Abyss.

“Sorry dude. I’ll try to make it smoother, but these things were just not made for mortals.”

“ _Please_ try.” The boy gasps wretchedly. Naminé bites her lip in sympathy. The tendril moves away, and what body she can see in the inky abyss starts to sink away.

“Are you going?” She asks, and he pauses.

“I guess? Hadn’t thought about it.”

“Okay. You’re welcome to visit again.” She enjoyed this spontaneous little trip, and some small part of her hopes he’d want to do it again for her.

“Heck yeah!” He flashes a wide grin. “Anytime you want.”  
  
“How will I find you?”

“My name- oh! My name. That’s right. Names are important, that’s why I forgot. Duh.” He slaps a palm to his forehead. “Call me Myde. I’ll hear you, though with how things have been so far, sometimes it might take a few days.. Or weeks... for me to answer.”

And with that he vanishes.

Her silver haired friend leans back heavily on against the wall.

“You make the strangest friends.” He says wryly, but his grin is fond.

She laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you gotta take your parents gummi ship and go exploring the universe without supervision, and sometimes you gotta let the eldritch manifestation of a former enemy take you to unreachable places as a form of working past some subconscious barriers. You know, like you do.


End file.
